The cemetery was quiet, the lines of graves laid out carefully by the living in honor of the dead. The short grass crunched and crinkled under Kakashi’s feet as he walked up to the pair of graves. Late afternoon light filtered through tall trees, casting long gold shadows across polished stone markers. Wind stirred faintly through the leaves, soft and restless.

  Kakashi stood before the grave. The only marking on it was a simple carved name and the symbol of Konohagakure. He kept his hands in his pockets, a simple handleful of flowers underneath one of his arms. For a while, he said nothing. He muttered at last to the empty graves. “…It’s been a while,”

  The wind did not answer, he exhaled slowly. Frosty breath filtering through his mask. “ANBU has been keeping me busy.”

  His visible eye moved over the name. Rin Nohara. The stone was cracking a little, some parts of it were starting to moss over. He shifted his weight slightly. “We just finished a mission.”

  His tone was calm, detached—the same tone he used when reporting to superiors. “There was a factory in southern Fire Country. Producing some kind of addictive powder. Being sold in smaller towns. Kids were getting hooked. Merchants, too.”

  He scratched lightly at the edge of his mask. “Took us a week to track down the rogue-nin running it. They’d buried the factory inside a system of caverns, leading from an old mining complex. Guard rotations. False trails.”

  A faint pause, he glanced towards the other graves. “We found it. Explosive tags did most of the work. I handled the commander.”

  His voice remained steady. “He wasn’t very impressive. Just a Genin with a gambling habit. Ended up running too deep and figured out a way to pay it off.”

  The wind shifted slightly, rustling leaves overhead. Kakashi looked down at the ground between the grave and its neighbor. “ANBU doesn’t really do dramatic fights. It’s mostly clean-up.”

  He paused again before reaching down to swat away a leaf that had settled onto the grave. With a sigh he admitted aloud to the grave. “Or it’s supposed to be.”

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  He crouched down slowly, resting on one knee. “Sometimes I think you two would hate it. Being in ANBU, it's definitely not the kinda missions you two would’ve liked.”

  Silence settled again.

  The sunlight dimmed slightly as a cloud passed overhead. Kakashi reached into his vest and pulled out a small scoop of water from the pail of water. He poured a little water at the base of each grave, careful and deliberate. He set the flowers in a rough arrangement in the vase that he hoped would look good, giving up after a few attempts.

  “There’s something else.” His voice softened. “They’re calling elite Jōnin back to the village. ANBU too. Selectively.”

  He stood again. Taking in the grave and the surrounding yard filled with similarly shaped and arranged graves in various states of maintenance. Some the bare minimum the grass and moss slowly attempting to reclaim the stone.

  “Kushina-sama is due within a week.” He folded his hands loosely behind his back. “The Hokage’s tightening security. They don’t expect problems but they’re preparing anyway.”

  His eye lowered slightly toward Rin’s name. “I think you would’ve made a good older sister.”

  The wind picked up slightly. Leaves scattered across the stone path. Kakashi straightened his shoulders. His hand rose briefly to adjust his headband, covering the eye beneath it as if by instinct. “They’ve got a lot of plans in place. More than you’d think.”

  He hesitated. “Some of them are… heavy.”

  He didn’t elaborate more than that, he really didn’t know all of them besides what he was told but the whole village was slowly becoming more on edge. His visible eye closed briefly.

  He stepped back from the grave, hands slipping into his pockets again. “I am so sorry that I haven’t been able to come by, But Minato sensei’s child will soon be born. I hope this generation will not know about war. ”

  He tilted his head slightly, almost sheepish as he spoke aloud to the grave. “So you can wish them luck, I guess.”

  The wind rustled again, gentler this time.

  Kakashi turned away at last. “I’ll be going now.”

  He walked down the stone path, posture straight, steps even.

  Behind him, as soon as Kakashi is far enough away a figure who was attentively listening to his rambling in front of the grave shunshins forward to stand in front of the grave. Swiftly reaching out a hand the figure grasps the flowers in a fist before ripping them from the vase.